Exciting Book Talk, Signings at Bookshop Santa Cruz on Wednesday, Jan. 28

Wednesday, January 28th at 7pm at Bookshop Santa Cruz

Jandy Nelson is the author of the much beloved and critically acclaimed The Sky is Everywhere. She lives in San Francisco, CA. Follow her on Twitter @jandynelson.
I’ll Give You the Sun (a Bookshop staff favorite and New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Time Top Ten YA of the Year (#3), NPR Great Reads of the Year, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year) is the story of Jude and Noah, twins who are incredibly close.

At 13, impassioned, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude surfs and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for the both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking.

Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and divisive ways...until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy as well as a captivating new mentor, both of whom may just need her as much as she needs them. Life before the event that divides them is Noah’s story to tell. Life after it is Jude’s. What the twins don’t realize is that each only have half the story, and if they can just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

Annameekee Hesik currently teaches high school English in Los Gatos, CA has previously worked in the Santa Cruz and Monterey education community mentoring and supporting new teachers.

She is the author of The You Know Who Girls series and her first book in the series was awarded an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award. As an out teacher, she is a bold voice supporting LGBT youth and she hopes her books help lesbian and questioning teens feel like they’re not the only you-know-who girls in the world.

Driving Lessons is Hesik’s follow-up to the first The Young Know Who Girls novel: Abbey Brooks has recovered from her end-of-freshman-year heartbreak and has vowed that this year, her sophomore year at Gila High, will be different in every way. Her to-do list: get her driver’s license, come out to her mom, get (and keep) a girlfriend, and survive another year of basketball.

But who will be there for her as her plans start to unravel? One thing is for sure: she’s not confused about who she is. And that is going to make all the difference this time.